Matchnight: United-Revs

I am in Guatemala City, not Foxborough. The Post has a freelance writer in place to cover the DCU-NE match at Estadio Gillette. As always, this is the ultimate place for pregame, in-game and postgame discussion. I will create a SEPARATE international thread later for the USA-Guatemala match and the other qualifiers/friendlies. Feel free to use this one for the second MLS match tonight: Chivas USA at Houston.

Remember all those denials Colorado folks issued last week concerning Insider reports that Fernando Clavijo was on his way out and English assistant Gary Smith would take over? The move was made official today. While the team cited Clavijo's recent family emergency as playing a part in the decision, this move has been in the works for quite some time. The Rapids will visit RFK on Saturday.

Goff, you are a clown. trying to claim that this was in the works and salvage your lack of credibility is a joke. Clearly the family issues were the final decision piece. Colorado had no intentions of blowing him out before the contract was up or they would have long ago (as far back as preseason). You need to stop Ives mongering with your obvious rumors and sources that don't exist or are fringe at best.

What's going on in that front office that they rationalize firing the guy because of a sick relative?

Very disturbing that they had so many denials and jump on family sickness as a convenient circumstance. I don't think Colorado will get any better while this organizational sickeness exists in their franchise.

Goff has been saying for some time that Clavijo was on the way out at Colorado.

Please tell me why the team need to let him go while he was attending to his family? They could have kept him on and still put Smith in as interim coach in his absence. No reason to "part ways" with the guy unless you don't want him around at all.

Look, Goff intimated it would happen and it happened. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Stan, get a life, dude!! Goff has broken a lot of stories in the last week (Edu, Feilhaber, Ruiz etc etc etc), month, year. Other than Ives, no one's close. He was all over the Clavijo story before anyone else. If Fernando's family didn't have an emergency, would he have "left" for good? We'll never know. But IMO, Colorado was getting ready to dump him, like Goff said, and the family emergency just postponed the inevitable.

Word here at 5200 feet is that the players are psyched to have a coach who actually develops a gameplan; and that Gomez is going to be on the bench for a while until he gets his lazy *ss in shape. He hasn't lasted more than 60 minutes in a game here all season, which is fine if your are coming back from an injury, but he has no excuse.

Anyway, last week was a different Colorado team than I've seen all season. The interim coach ran their reserve program, and all the players have nothing but great things to say about his coaching ability and style. I guess we'll see if he can keep things moving on Sat.

43 minutes in and we've only had a few good, but LONG looks at Warren. Fred, Vide with two that were close, but for the most part, we are playing too many hopeful long balls to no one . .

Their goal was all Namoff. He was drawn out of his RB position at midfield and dove in on two Revs, missed them both, and left Smith WIDE open. At midfield, there's no reason for an outside back to dive in . .. stay ORGANIZED!!

crazy little pinball goal for twellz
big deal
Is Vide a Ben Olsen clone, with a little sprinkling of extra violence?
Zaher worked against Sainey well.
I am banking on Fred getting a goal tonight if they can do something to keep him from having to mark Shalrie.
Very not boring game to watch so far.
Come on United!

This is another ugly game. The Revs are almost exclusively looking to use their speed on the flanks, as Ralston and Joseph have been very quiet. New England scored on the only chance either team created. delantero summed it up well: Namoff out of position, and Fred tried to cover for him but had too much ground to make up on Smith. Not much Crayton could do. The Revs have had more of the ball and run of play, but again, they've only created one chance. Meanwhile, all we can get going are shots from 30 yards (granted, Fred had Warren beat with his attempt that went just wide).

Going forward, we are doing OK at times but we haven't been able to unlock the Revs and get into the box. Moreno is getting hounded every time he's on the ball, and Emilio is being starved of service. When he's had the ball, no one's near enough for a combination to spring him into the box.

I think we need more of a presence in between their back three and their midfield. Vide and Simms are not attacking midfielders, and Quaranta and Fred are both staying wide to help defend. Those two are going to have to cut into the middle and take advantage of the space there.

I rarely comment, but when I do I always lament the FAKE FIELD...well fake is one thing, but MINUATURE is INEXCUSABLE. This field is about 106 yards long?!!!! why don't they just play at the local high school...at least they would pack those stands ;)

Seriously, MLS earns no "worldwide" respect when the sport is treated like an "american afterthought"...

Huih- I have not seen him show that much skill on the ball, but to be on the fair side I have not seen that much of him. If I was overly critical than I am sorry. I only see him at the end of a match on the internet. I don't get to see any of the reserve matches.

Why are there always a few people trying to make excuses about how the mighty United didn't get to play their beautiful game?

MLS-- and this is a fact-- a secondary sport, trying to move up. That means being a second tenant, playing second-choice dates. DC is lucky enough to have been able to have a pretty good stadium situation for years, excepting the baseball field. But it's not because there's anything special about United. It's because they were lucky enough to inherit an otherwise tenant-less stadium on a mass transit line.

Fact is, MLS games will be played on the fake stuff. Don't tell me there aren't fieldturf pitches around-- I played on one in Fairfax a few months ago. Unless DC is just too awesome to deign to practice on fieldturf, the team needs to train on the surface they will play on.

Arena wouldn't have changed much here other than give better quotes to the press.

Better 2nd half for DC, but it takes the 2nd goal for NE to get us going. I'd like to have seen a better replay from Comcast on the Fred non-call, since we know that a) Heaps is a goon, b) Fred doesn't dive when he's already in a very dangerous spot, and c) Heaps is a liar, cheat, charlatan, and communist.

That said, on the balance, 2-1 is probably a fair result. With the players missing, the short bench, and Fred coming off hurt early, a result tonight would have been huge. We didn't play poorly, we just didn't play all that well either; too many 5 ratings, and too few 6s and 7s. There isn't a team in MLS that can get away with a mediocre night against the Revs and get points on anything approaching a regular basis.

P.S. I agree with MJ, in that we clearly need to have a practice session or two on turf. We've now lost 4 of 5 games on the surface, and were absolutely pasted by teams that aren't that good (RSL and NY). Tonight, the defending was there for the most part, but we never got the measure of our passes.

I'm trying to figure out why DCU is forced to make an adjustment by halftime in EVERY game. It's not first half injuries, so the only thing I can come up with is Soehn's gameplans must suck. He's 1.5 years into his tenure and he's seen every team at least 3-4 times. Why hasn't he figured out how to win consistently?

And another thing, his off-season signings and trades sucked (where are you Franco Neill?)!

So his eye for talent is mediocre at best. He tinkers with lineups and formations and gameplans. No wonder the performances are so up and down. And he looks confused most of the time on the sideline. Take away the long win streak last year and this is a .500 team at best under Soehn. If this team doesn't bounce back for a deep run in the playoffs, I hope we go in a different direction next season (if not before).

Just for the record --1.) Its hard to win games by passing backward 3 out of 5 times.
2.) Tino cannot shoot.3.) NE definitely wanted the ball more in 1st half than DCU.
We look tired and lazy on offense.
4.)Without Jaime, we have NO OFFENSE-- was Emilio playing tonight? 5.) Has Gallardo taken his money into retirement??? VERY DISAPPOINTED IN OUR EFFORT-- NE WAS BETTER TEAM tonight.

Burch played great in the second half. Definitely one of his better games this season. I'm still not sure why we have Kirk. He's so slow and doesn't fight for anything. We should have put Cordeiro in way before kirk.

Trust me, as a Revs fan, even on his best days, Khano frustrates the hell out of us with his alternately lazy and reckless play. But i don't think your boys were exactly being fitted for halos, either. Looked to me like Cristman should've had a penalty given on one of those late, late chances, but then, i was at the game...

Smith is a bad ass not a D-bag. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Fred just couldn't keep up.
Crayton pushed for more, I hope these guys can look in to capitalizing on a quick goal kick this weekend vs Colorado and beyond.
Burch showed a lot of poise and balls in this game. That's it for now. Nice to see some more reserves doing some stuff.
Pick our battles wisely, expending too much on the strongest opponents in the league at any given time is wasted effort if we can't put teams like colorado away on the weekend.
Did anyone really expect United to win with the lineup that was put out tonight? I did if we could have scored first...
You win some, you lose some. At least we beat Chicago away...
Vamos United!

Anybody here see a penalty that was not called when Cristman was pulled down in the box off of a direct kick in the second half?

How about Burch shoving Twellman into the sign boards? Burch is a very physical player. If he was in another team he might have been a thug tonight. His physical play got in Twellman's head and psyched him out.

I swear I saw Jaime out run two NE players tonight.

Larentowicz's goal is basically the same goal that Reis gave up to Chicago last week. A long distance knuckleball that froze the goalie and then changed directions. Nothing you can do about that.

If that's a penalty for Cristman, then every team that gets a corner gets a penalty every time. Sorry, Revs fans, but that would have been an extremely soft PK. Was he pulled down? Yes. Does it happen all the time and go uncalled? Yes again.

And did I really see another person trash Gallardo for a game he didn't play in? Really? If that's how things are going to be, then I blame the loss tonight on Scott Vermillion.

MJ:

Yeah, I just took a 2nd look and the ball just moved on Crayton, who was sunk. I remember Rimando getting fooled by Preki like that on at least 3 occasions. Larentowicz normally hits lasers, but this time his shot had a tricky sort of movement on it. Credit to him.

Ratings after watching the hideous US-Guatemala game:

Crayton: 4 (fooled by Larentowicz's shot and was bailed out by Namoff after coming off his line too slowly late on)
Namoff: 5 (first goal had a lot to do with him getting caught out, but he was much better in the 2nd half and saved a goal)
McTavish: 6 (not involved in the goals, looked steady)
Burch: 6 (overall strong game, though he might have been able to prevent Twellman's goal)
Zaher: 4 (didn't do anything in particular wrong, but Nyassi had the better of him consistently)
Quaranta: 5 (typical energy from Tino, but little product)
Vide: 5 (solid defensively, but again exposed as being not much more than a destroyer)
Simms: 5 (would have liked to see him position himself for some long shots or late runs; did OK otherwise)
Fred: 5 (A couple good flashes, and I thought he won a penalty on Heaps; still, it wasn't there consistently on a night it was needed)
Moreno: 7 (here's your nightmare for the night: one day, Jaime will retire)
Emilio: 4 (being starved of service is one thing, but he didn't do enough to force himself into the game)

Thompson: 4 (didn't get into the attack enough for me)
Kirk: 3 (looked distinctly below the class required; he's big, strong, and fast, yet was outrun and outmuscled by Smith time and again)
Cordeiro: 5 (nearly created a chance in a cameo role)

I say blame Christian Gomez for last nights loss...
More seriously though, I don't think I've seen any ball keeper outers work as hard as Crayton did last night to push the troops to not give up. United has a tendency to fall apart when things aren't going their way, I hope Crayton can drive the team to success.
We'll have Guerrero,and Martinez back this weekend right?
Any other yellow card suspensions?